Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

'Without discussion or negotiation': they were the words of the member for Hindmarsh when discussing the government's cuts to penalty rates. A great unfairness will be inflicted on my electorate of Melbourne Ports in 10 days time, on 1 July, as it will be on the people of Australia. According to the Bureau of Statistics, there are more than 13,000 workers in my electorate who are going to be hurt by the Turnbull government's attack on penalty rates. The 2011 census data shows that Melbourne Ports is amongst the 10 electorates nationally that are most affected by these cuts to penalty rates. According to the 2011 census, there were 7,128 people in Melbourne Ports working in the retail sector and 5,606 working in the hospitality industry. Over half of the workers in those sectors are aged 35 years or younger. They are the people struggling to save for their first home, a goal that is becoming beyond the reach for many as these unfair measures are placed like hurdles before them. Only Labor, with its aim of eliminating negative gearing, gives them any hope of getting into the housing market.

Across the country, approximately 700,000 of the lowest paid workers will have their pay cut, while the government gives a $65 billion tax cut to major business. Talk of phasing in the cuts to penalty rates over four years suggests that low-paid workers will not feel the pinch if they become poorer more slowly, when in fact it will only give them time to consider how to make the cuts to their own health care, the education of their children or their spending at local businesses. As Bill Shorten, the member for Maribyrnong and Leader of the Opposition, said, 'This is an appalling decision, and it comes at a time when wages are falling in real terms.'

The Treasurer, Scott Morrison, tells us that wages will go up when companies grow after their tax cut. He is hoping for the trickle-down effect. As Sally McManus, the Secretary of the ACTU, pointed out last night, the trouble with that is that last year company profits went up by 40 per cent. In the real world, real workers are facing unfair cuts to their take-home pay, and growth has flatlined at 1.9 per cent. When Labor was last in office, it was over three per cent. So we are being promised 'pie in the sky when you die'. These big company tax cuts will allegedly lead to people getting salary increases but, while profits have increased over the last few years of the Liberal government, that has not happened.

It is of absolutely no comfort to those facing pay cuts in my electorate that others will be gifted a $16,400 tax cut on the same day as retail workers are being punished with a cut of $6,000 per year via cuts to their penalty rates. It is not only victims of penalty rate cuts that this government is treating unfairly. Small businesses will have major concerns about the knock-on effects of the 11,800 locals in my electorate who have less money to spend. As the member for Gellibrand pointed out, as of 1 July every taxpayer earning from $21,000 to $180,000 will have their PAYE tax increased. My constituents are angry that no other major political party made a submission to the Fair Work Commission arguing for penalty rates—including the Greens political party, despite their rhetoric. Labor remains the only party committed to protecting penalty rates and low-income workers.

The Turnbull government have failed to explain why retail or hospitality work on Sunday is somehow less valuable than their own or anyone else's work. As the member for Dobell said, low-paid workers, in 10 days time, will suffer a $77 per week cut to their pay. That is completely unjustified for people at the lowest end of the income scale in Australia, who we should be looking after. The McKell Institute has released a report highlighting that 55 per cent of those affected by these penalty rate cuts are female. This is yet another way in which the cruel and unnecessary cuts are unfair. The McKell Institute also reports that changes will impact on future EBA negotiations because they signal an economy-wide devaluation of Sunday penalty rates and may serve to undermine future collective bargaining. So we have a $22 billion cut to education; Australia has an all-time high rate of under-employment and casualisation; we have a situation where it is harder for young people to get into the housing market; and on top of that we have got this unfair and unnecessary cut to penalty rates. For the average Australian, this government is bad news.

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